“He was shot.”
I faced Dmitri. “A gunshot?” My eyes dropped to his shoulder, where he also had a gunshot wound. The pieces arrangedthemselves immediately. “Were you shot while rescuing him?”
Dmitri moved further into the room, and I followed.
“You shouldn’t have seen him like this.” His eyes stayed on my father rather than me. “And you won’t visit again until I say so. Iker wants him, and he’s watching you closely.”
I barely heard the second half. I was watching Dmitri as everything settled into place. He rescued my father. My father was the important person the old man spoke about. Which meant Dmitri was Luigi, and Luigi wasn’t a person I knew from my own life, but it was Dmitri. The old man believed Dmitri needed me because I knew Luigi, and Dmitri was Luigi. This entire time, he was the one connecting it all.
He turned to me. “He is safe here, for now.” We stared for a moment before he asked. “What’s with that look?”
“You’re Luigi,” I said. It wasn’t a question by the time it left my mouth. “And the important person Luigi took from that old man is my father.”
He smirked. “Now you agree that you know who Luigi is.”
I stared at him. The smirk confirmed everything my mind tried to argue with.
“You lied to him.” My voice shook. “You told him you wanted someone I knew, and that person was you. You knew it was you the whole time.” The tears came back. “You lied to him. You did, right?”
I needed the word. One word, and I would know whether everything I was feeling had any ground to stand on.
He lifted his hand and wiped the tears from my cheek. His touch was more of a confirmation. I leaned into his palm, the tears not stopping. The tightness in my chest loosened. He had no idea how happy I was.
“You must be having a lot of happy tears,” he said while searching my eyes.
“You actually found my father.” My voice came out shaky andsoft.
His thumb brushed the skin beneath my eye. “You asked.”
“You said no,” I reminded him.
The smirk returned. “Guilty.”
A short, wet laugh left me, and I shook my head. The version of Dmitri I arrived with tonight shifted into what I didn’t have a clean word for yet.
“Thank you,” I whispered. “How do I even pay you back?”
Dmitri’s thumb moved, this time brushing across my lower lip. His eyes dropped to it for a moment before returning to mine. “His name is Roman. I don’t care what you fucking call him. And don’t let any man put his hands on you like that again.”
I blinked. Did he just bring Romeo into this? Right now, in this room? But I nodded because the look on his face left no room for argument.
His hand moved to my lower back, and he drew me into his chest. I let myself stay there while everything from the last hour settled into its place. The relief. The tears. My father. And Dmitri’s words.
Caitlin called it jealousy. Standing in his arms, I began to think she was right, and it was a problem. I couldn’t deny that my feelings were responding to everything he was doing to me. And that had nothing to do with fake marriages or debt.
When I agreed to be his wife, nobody mentioned it would come with this. Was I allowed to fall for him?
“Thank you, Dmitri,” I whispered again.
His hand tightened on my back. He said nothing, but held me there like he intended to stay.
Chapter Thirty-two
Inna Grace
A dream woke me up.I sat up fast with my palm pressed flat against my chest, waiting for my breathing to catch up with my body. It felt real, the way the worst ones always do. The kind of dream that borrows directly from your fears, so you can’t tell where the thought ends and the dream begins. I saw some men moving through the hotel corridor, and suddenly, my father disappeared. When Dmitri told me the old man, Iker, still wanted my father, my mind kept replaying scenes on a loop. And when I fell asleep, it finally played it all the way through.
Reminding myself it was just a dream, I pushed the sheets off and sat at the edge of the bed for a moment. The light outside had the quality of a morning already half gone. I overslept, but anyone could, after how hectic yesterday was. Well, except for Mr. Machine, who wasn’t anywhere in the room. Did Dmitri value sleep at all?
